is Pink Lady's seventh single release, released on March 25, 1978. This became their sixth number-one hit on the

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in Nov ...

Chart in Japan. The single sold 1,800,000 copies, and spent nine weeks at number one on the chart.

Background

According to songwriter

Yū Aku (occasionally credited as You Aku) (February 7, 1937 – August 1, 2007), was a Japanese lyricist, poet, and novelist. Early life Yū Aku was born as Hiroyuki Fukada (深田公之, Fukada Hiroyuki) in Awaji Island, Hyogo, Japan. His parents ...

, the song was inspired by

Crown Lighter Lions The are a professional baseball team in Japan's Pacific League based north of Tokyo in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture. Before 1979, they were based in Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture in Kyushu. The team is owned by a subsidiary of Seibu Railway, w ...

pitcher Tamotsu Nagai, who used an underthrow to strike out

Sadaharu Oh Sadaharu Oh (Japanese: , ''Ō Sadaharu''; born May 20, 1940), also known as Wang Chen-chih (), is a Japanese-born former baseball player and manager Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Ō Sadaharu"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 758. who ...

at the 1977 All-Star Game. The dance choreography uses a baseball motif. Traditionally, Mie and

Kei Kei may refer to: People * Kei (given name) * Kei, Cantonese for Ji (surname), Ji(姫) * Kei, Cantonese for Qi (surname), Qi(奇, 祁, 亓) * Shō Kei (1700–1752), king of the Ryūkyū Kingdom * Kei (singer) (born 1995), stage name of South Kor ...

wear tank tops and shorts patterned after baseball uniforms.

Reception

The duo won the 1978

Japan Music Awards for outstanding achievements in the Broadcast Music Producers Federation, was major music awards show held annually in Japan from 1969 to 1993. The 1988 awards ceremony was cancelled due to the deteriorating health of Emperor Shōwa. List of J ...

with this song. According to

, this was the second best selling single from 1978, after "

UFO An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...

Other uses

The duo also recorded a version of the song with different lyrics as a commercial jingle for . A re-recorded version of the song was included on the 2-disc greatest hits release, ''

INNOVATION Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed entity ...

'', released in December 2010.

Controversy

In July 2019, the cheering squad for the

Chunichi Dragons The are a professional baseball team based in Nagoya, the chief city in the Chūbu region of Japan. The team plays in the Central League of Nippon Professional Baseball. They have won the Central League pennant nine times (most recently in 2011) ...

stopped playing the song when it was decided that one line of the lyrics was offensive. The line in question is ; the use of the term is considered to be rude to players.

Track listing (7" vinyl)

All lyrics are written by

; all music is composed and arranged by

Shunichi Tokura , is a Japanese composer and was the chair of the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) from 12 August 2010 to 31 March 2016. Early life Tokura began playing the violin at age 4. He spent his elementary and hi ...

Chart positions

Cover versions

* The song was performed live by

Chisato Moritaka (born 11 April 1969) is a Japanese pop singer who also is notable as a songwriter. She is affiliated with Up-Front Create, a subsidiary of the Up-Front Group.

as part of her Pink Lady Medley in the concert video ''

Moritaka Land Tour 1990.3.3 at NHK Hall is a live video by Japanese singer/songwriter Chisato Moritaka. Recorded live at the NHK Hall in Shibuya, Tokyo on March 3, 1990, the video was released on September 18, 2013 by Warner Music Group, Warner Music Japan on Blu-ray and DVD formats; ea ...

'', released on Blu-ray in 2013. * Girl group

Speed In everyday use and in kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a scalar quanti ...

recorded a cover of this song in 1997. * Trasparenza covered the song in their 2002 album ''Pink Lady Euro Tracks''. * Idol duo W covered the song in their 2004 debut album ''

Duo U&U is the debut album by W, the duo formed by Morning Musume and Mini-Moni members and longtime friends Ai Kago and Nozomi Tsuji. Recorded while they were winding down their duties as Morning Musume and Minimoni members, the album consists of cove ...

''. *

Checkicco were an idol group formed by Masahiro Mizuguchi, a producer for Fuji Television, Fuji TV who had the idea of creating "an Onyanko Club for the Heisei, Heisei era (1989-2019)". They debuted in 1998 with the single "Dakishimete". Their name come ...

recorded a cover version for the 2009 Pink Lady/Yū Aku tribute album ''

Bad Friends is a 2009 tribute album, is kade from , which translates to "Bad friend" and is the origin of Yū Aku's name. The final track, "Kawahara no Ishikawa Goemon" was originally recorded by Eiichi Ohtaki (under the pseudonym "Niagara Fallin' Stars") o ...

''. *

Ryoko Shiraishi is a Japanese voice actress and singer from Kashiba, Nara. She is affiliated with Aoni Production. Possessing a husky voice, Shiraishi voices young to teenage men as well as young girls and teenage women. However, in a break from tradition, on ...

and

Yūko Sanpei is a Japanese actress and voice actress from Tokyo, Japan. She voiced Nozomi Yumehara/Cure Dream in ''Yes! PreCure 5'' and its sequel ''GoGo!'' and currently plays Boruto Uzumaki in '' Boruto: Naruto Next Generations''. Biography Sanpei made he ...

covered the song in the 2009 anime ''

Natsu no Arashi! is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Jin Kobayashi. The manga was serialized in Square Enix's ''Gangan Wing'' ''shōnen manga'' magazine from August 2006 to September 2010, with its chapters collected in eight bound volumes. ''Nat ...

''. * The tribute group

Pink Babies was a 14-member Japanese female idol group that was active from 2014 to 2017. Created by songwriter/producer Shunichi Tokura as part of his "Pan-Pacific Project", the group was a tribute to the 1970s J-pop duo Pink Lady, performing only songs ...

covered the song in their "

Nagisa no Sindbad is Pink Lady's fourth single release, released on June 10, 1977, with a total of 1,450,000 sales, This single stayed at the number-one spot for eight weeks. According to Oricon, this was the best selling single of 1977. The song's dance choreog ...

" Type-A single in 2016. * Yōko Aramaki covered the song in her 2019 album ''Respect! ~Watashi ga Shōwa wo Utattara Kon'na Kanji!~''.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 1978 singles 1978 songs Pink Lady (band) songs Japanese-language songs Baseball songs and chants Disco songs Oricon Weekly number-one singles Songs with lyrics by Yū Aku Songs with music by Shunichi Tokura Victor Entertainment singles